Sponsored Article
A longer version of this article previously appeared on contentful.com.
The digital world moves fast. To stay competitive, companies need a proactive approach to digital customer experience (DCX) improvements. Next year’s success depends on the actions you take now.
Delivering better DCX means understanding where content sits within your organization, who your target audience is and how you can leverage customer data and analytics. It means experimenting with modern content solutions designed to integrate content and personalization into multiple experiences that feel seamless and connected. It means embracing and experimenting with new technologies that can streamline your processes and deliver better experiences.
Online Customer Experience Management: Future Trends
Some trends in technology only have minimal lasting impact. On the other hand, there are movements that shift the entire landscape.
AI is one of those movements.
AI is going to have a seismic effect on the way that businesses deliver customer experiences. Businesses need to prepare now so they can take advantage of AI as it matures and becomes more established.
Forward-thinking companies are examining their content strategy, thinking about how they structure content and how that would feed into an AI model. These actions will make those companies best placed to take advantage of AI advances. Companies hoping to retrofit AI into what they already have will quickly hit the limits of their existing technology and risk being left behind.
AI preparedness is key. By laying the groundwork now and choosing technology that enables them to integrate AI into their content strategy, these forward thinkers are the ones best positioned to succeed.
Tips for Continually Improving the Digital Customer Experience
Besides adopting AI, companies must continually improve digital customer experiences to remain competitive. If you want to deliver a seamless customer journey, start with a seamless content journey. It doesn’t matter where content lives within your business. What matters is how you connect that content together and deliver it as a seamless experience across the customer journey. Follow these guidelines:
- Start with an understanding of where content sits within — and flows through — your business.
- Look for tools (like the Contentful Composable Content Platform) that connect different content sources together and empower teams to assemble content a seamless digital customer experience from multiple sources.
- Reuse content that already exists within your business to amplify its value and deliver customer journeys that feel seamless and connected.
Understand Your Target Audience
Most marketers know they should research, use data analytics, and gather customer feedback to better understand their target audience. But there could be other audiences waiting for a better digital experience.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Apr
30
Supercharge Contact Center Efficiency with Generative AI
Learn practical strategies to reduce post-call documentation time by over 8 minutes.
Register
Conference
May
1
Qualtrics X4 Salt Lake City 2024
Register
Webinar
May
2
Unleash AI for Crisis Management: Transform Threats into Triumphs
Learn how Sprinklr Insights provides real-time insights on current events, trends, and brand crises to empower your team.
Register
Webinar
May
9
Driving Customer-Centricity in the Financial Services Industry
Discover how financial organizations are leveraging generative AI technologies.
Register
Conference
May
9
An Irish Roundtable in the Valley: The Economic Impact of AI on the World of Work Stanford 2024
Exploring the Impact of AI On the World of Work with Irish diaspora leaders and tech business champions from the North of Ireland
Register
Conference
May
13
Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo Conference London 2024
Register
Consider opportunities to expand your target audience. Ask yourself:
- What new audiences could we open up by improving digital customer experiences?
- Does our current experience create a barrier to entry for people who prefer to operate digitally?
- Would a better digital customer experience bring a new generation or customer segment to us?
Leverage Data for Personalization
Data is cheap to gather, but expensive to activate. The key is to choose a personalization engine that enables you to activate data within your content platform. For example, Contentful enables you to plug personalization engines, like Ninetailed, into the content platform so teams can manage content and personalization in one place.
Consider these strategies to best leverage your data:
- Use a data-driven personalization tool.
- Connect personalization and content in one place.
- Make personalization a core part of content development.
Deliver a Consistent Experience Across Multiple Channels
Delivering a consistent experience across multiple channels isn’t about delivering the same thing on every channel — it’s about delivering multiple experiences in a consistent way. This starts with making content easy to access and reuse so teams can assemble consistent messages and imagery into the different digital touchpoints customers want.
For example, a composable content approach empowers teams at Bloom & Wild to rearrange text, images and other media to quickly meet different needs. Reusable content ensures consistency while giving teams the flexibility to present that content in different ways on mobile, desktop and in other digital applications. See how Contentful helps Bloom & Wild balance personalization with consistency across the digital customer experience.
Leverage Emerging Technologies
Procuring and implementing new technology used to be a 12- to 18-month process minimum, but these days SaaS and composable technology facilitate a much faster time to value. Businesses need the ability to quickly experiment with and adopt new technologies that can enhance customer experiences and increase engagement.
Leverage emerging technologies by:
- Choosing a platform that lets you easily connect new technologies and use them to deliver experiences.
- Experimenting with new technologies like AI, personalization tools or chatbots.
- Remembering that the abilities to add and experiment with new technologies are more important than what specific technology you choose to try.
Investing time in your digital customer experience strategy now will deliver a positive return on investment for years to come.
Learn more at contentful.com.